BOZEMAN — Bozeman police are searching for someone who hit a fire hydrant, broke it off and then took off with it.
Bozeman City Police deal with a lot of hit and runs, usually things as small as a side mirror on the side of a car, a bumper, maybe a headlight being damaged or lost.
But in this case, an entire fire hydrant is missing.
“I don’t know how," said Det. Capt. Cory Klumb. "They obviously threw it in the vehicle."
For Klumb, it’s an unusual situation.
“The fire hydrants are on the sidewalk so that means the vehicle was on the sidewalk at some point," Klumb said.
A car struck and snapped off the fire hydrant at Willson and Mendenhall Streets downtown.
In a Facebook post, police point out that while the fire hydrant is gone, something else was left behind.
“They were nice enough to leave us their bumper," Klumb said.
A red bumper, which, as it turns out, belongs to a 2011 or 2012 Dodge Nitro.
That’s not the only clue.
“Most every vehicle part somewhere has a number stamped into it," Klumb said. "We were able to get the replacement part of the bumper, itself, and the light that came out of it.”
But how in the world did whoever did pick it up and take it away?
“They got it from the street to the vehicle somehow," Klumb said.
A fire hydrant weighs about 100 to 200 pounds.
They normally require a cart to move.
“What we want at this point is the $1,500 fire hydrant returned," Klumb said. “The door closes when we pull to the driveway and find a Dodge Nitro missing a front bumper, right? Then we are a lot less likely to be lenient on the person that we had to track down.”
Klumb said this could end in an arrest for theft.
As the clues fall into place, he added that it would just be nice to have their property returned.
“However we would get our fire hydrant back would be appreciated," Klumb said.
